Twilight Imperium on April 19th

Race choice and player position are up - Randomised number used from my work colleague in the generation of this list...

1 Tom W: Arborec or Nekro Virus
2 Paul: Yssaril Tribes or Ghosts of Creuss
3 ???? (Alex or other?) : Barony of Letnev or Clan of Saar
4 Sam: Universities of Jol-Nar or Xxcha Kingdom
5 Aneurin: Emirates of Hacan or Shardak-Norr
6 Beardy Tom: Mentak Coalition or Winnu
7 Ellis: Embers of Muaat or Yin Brotherhood
8 Steve: L1Z1X Mindnet or Federation of Sol

If Alex cant make it and we don't have an 8th player - positions 4-8 will shift up 1. Let me know which race you want to be and I will highlight it here. If you want extra info about your races let me know... PM if you want my opinion.


Beardy Tom - So would you like an alliance to eliminate the traitor known as Ellis?

Aneurin wrote:Race choice and player position are up - Randomised number used from my work colleague in the generation of this list...

2 Paul: Yssaril Tribes or Ghosts of Creuss

Everyone is being very cagey! I'll go for the Yssaril Tribes, please.

Also, I think most people have my address but anyone who doesn't please PM me and I'll let you know.

I'll be Mentak Coalition.

Aneurin, I don't think I'll jump into any hasty alliances just yet. I'll keep diplomatic relations open, weigh my options, consider pros and cons, evaluate any bribes received and then make a decision which I feel is in the best interest of furthering peace and prosperity in the galaxy.

BeardyTom wrote:I'll be Mentak Coalition.

Aneurin, I don't think I'll jump into any hasty alliances just yet. I'll keep diplomatic relations open, weigh my options, consider pros and cons, evaluate any bribes received and then make a decision which I feel is in the best interest of furthering peace and prosperity in the galaxy.

Yet you chose a trade good stealing race? When positioned next to the Hacan? I don't believe your peaceful intentions are true. Perhaps I will be forced to convince you by other more 'bacterial weapon' related means into an alliance .

Aneurin wrote:

BeardyTom wrote:I'll be Mentak Coalition.

Aneurin, I don't think I'll jump into any hasty alliances just yet. I'll keep diplomatic relations open, weigh my options, consider pros and cons, evaluate any bribes received and then make a decision which I feel is in the best interest of furthering peace and prosperity in the galaxy.

Yet you chose a trade good stealing race? When positioned next to the Hacan? I don't believe your peaceful intentions are true. Perhaps I will be forced to convince you by other more 'bacterial weapon' related means into an alliance .

It begins...!

Well I'm pretty much getting all my race predictions wrong so far!

BeardyTom wrote:...furthering peace and prosperity in the galaxy.

Dreadnoughts with computers and missiles, usually help maintain 'peace and prosperity' in the galaxy...

I wonder if there's an equivalent in TI3?

Hope to drop by at some point, early afternoon to see the game being played.

Jamie wrote:

BeardyTom wrote:...furthering peace and prosperity in the galaxy.

Dreadnoughts with computers and missiles, usually help maintain 'peace and prosperity' in the galaxy...

I wonder if there's an equivalent in TI3?

Hope to drop by at some point, early afternoon to see the game being played.

Well, dreadnoughts certainly exist (and are pretty nasty).

Right, I'm in!
I'll take Clan of Saar please!
Also, anyone able to offer a lift to/from Paul's?

Alex wrote:Right, I'm in!
I'll take Clan of Saar please!
Also, anyone able to offer a lift to/from Paul's?

I can get you again. Send me your addrss

All this talk of dreadnoughts is getting me excited, I'll go the mindnet!

Aneurin wrote:

Alex wrote:Right, I'm in!
I'll take Clan of Saar please!
Also, anyone able to offer a lift to/from Paul's?

I can get you again. Send me your addrss

If I get to Alex's, can I also have a lift please.

You will all be delighted to know that I have chosen to be the Nekro virus - should be chaotic.

Are we playing with all the basic rules from the two expansions? Are we playing with any optional/special rules?

Usually play - distant suns, mech units, artefacts, facilities, wormhole nexus, prelim objectives, flag ships...

Not the ambassadors or promissory notes

Are the ambassadors the same thing as leaders?

I'm excited for this now! I'll take Jol-Nar.

EDIT: How many newbies are playing? I consider myself a half newbie (ie. it's been so long since I played I didn't remember the rules, and haven't played with the expansions) and am wondering if it is worth slimming down on some of the optional rules eg. facilities, wormhole nexus, artifacts. Just a thought. I will submit to the superior judgement of the veterans on this matter.

EDIT EDIT: Everything that adds new miniatures onto the board should be used.

Obviously.

EDIT EDIT PS: Base or variant strategy cards?

ALSO: Does the player order on page 2 determine the position of our home systems, or the order in which we choose to place out home systems (I just realised how much I absolutely don't want to be next to Tom W).

ALSO EDIT: (Which actually, either way, I shouldn't be.)

I *think* that the only total newbie is Beardy Tom. Steve and Aneurin are the two veterans, and everyone else would be a semi-newbie (i.e. has played once before).

We played with the rules setup that Aneurin suggested last time and I didn't find it too bad. Most of those add-ons are fairly tiny concepts so don't add too much complexity.

I think that last time the idea was that the player order did set our position around the board, I'm certainly assuming that will be the case (and I'll be next to the nasty virus, er, I mean the most bountiful virus which I am delighted to co-exist with and oh, look over there, don't those planets in the other direction look really nice?)

And agree that it would be good to clarify which strategy cards we're playing with. I *think* that last time we played with mostly the variants but my memory is fairly terrible.

Sam wrote:Are the ambassadors the same thing as leaders?

I'm excited for this now! I'll take Jol-Nar.

EDIT: How many newbies are playing? I consider myself a half newbie (ie. it's been so long since I played I didn't remember the rules, and haven't played with the expansions) and am wondering if it is worth slimming down on some of the optional rules eg. facilities, wormhole nexus, artifacts. Just a thought. I will submit to the superior judgement of the veterans on this matter.

EDIT EDIT: Everything that adds new miniatures onto the board should be used.

Obviously.

EDIT EDIT PS: Base or variant strategy cards?

ALSO: Does the player order on page 2 determine the position of our home systems, or the order in which we choose to place out home systems (I just realised how much I absolutely don't want to be next to Tom W).

ALSO EDIT: (Which actually, either way, I shouldn't be.)

You need artefacts in to offer extra capture or VP to keep the game rolling along...
The nexus opens up wormhole travel between alpha and beta spaces so just makes getting to the other players easier for capturing VP...
Facilities help if you region of space is crap...gets around the eclipse problem

Player order is determining position

Sam wrote:Are the ambassadors the same thing as leaders?

No, the leaders and 'representatives' are different. I believe we'll be playing with the leaders (which grant certain bonuses on attacks that they're involved in and that sort of thing) but not with the representatives which add to the 'political game' (and potentially slow the game down). But Aneurin can confirm hopefully...

One of my mistakes from last time was to basically completely forget about my leaders and leave them all in my home system.

Oh, also, for anyone with an iOS device there's quite a good app called "Imperium - Twilight Imperium 3 Companion" which is free (with an in-app purchase to unlock some not very important things). It shows you all the info for your race, let's you track the tech that you have got (and shows the upgrades to your units from tech) and helps you navigate the tech tree.

I like the fusion of board games and tablets (big smart phone variety). I wonder how many people who play board games, also have tablets?

I'm about half way through reading the rules. I skipped the bit about how combat works so I'm just going to wave my ships around going "NEEEEeeooowww pew! pew! pew! KABOOM!" and then all your ships explode.

What Paul said...

Also combat is really easy... It happens simultaneously - all ships

Roll a dice - get above you attack value to score a hit...

Player you hit decides how hits are distributed amount his/her ships

Casualties removed - rinse and repeat until - one player retreats or there is only 1 man standing...

There are a few pre combat rolls that can be done - but it's always roll a dice over your combat value to hit something... Easy...

The hard part of TI3 is getting used to activating systems...

Bumped

Race choice and player position are up - Randomised number used from my work colleague in the generation of this list...

1 Tom W: Arborec or Nekro Virus
2 Paul: Yssaril Tribes or Ghosts of Creuss
3 Alex: Barony of Letnev or Clan of Saar
4 Sam: Universities of Jol-Nar or Xxcha Kingdom
5 Aneurin: Emirates of Hacan or Shardak-Norr
6 Beardy Tom: Mentak Coalition or Winnu
7 Ellis: Embers of Muaat or Yin Brotherhood
8 Steve: L1Z1X Mindnet or Federation of Sol

Presume we will be ordering pizza for tea again?

Aneurin wrote:Presume we will be ordering pizza for tea again?

Sounds like a good plan to me! I have some snacks available to keep us going through the day...

My ideal epic game would last perhaps three and a half hours, maybe four. More than that and though I am still having some fun, usually on my own turns, I also start thinking about what else I could be doing with the time. I do want to play it again. I want to improve on my fleet composition, command chip usage, objective completion, and so on. But I'm not so keen on another 8 player game. It's just to long between turns and from start to end for my taste. I feel like a 5 player game would be the right size for me, and I wouldn't complain about adding some expediting optional rules. This is just my disposition, I'm afraid. I never claimed to be patient

It seems Eclipse is largely an economic race whereas the possibilities in Twilight Imperium are more varied. There is a lot to like in the strategy card selection, race abilities, potential for deals and diplomacy etc. But in the end Eclipse was a lot more elegant, fast, and fun. There was little room in Eclipse to forgot a vital ability or rule as the board is laid out so sensibly, and there was nothing in Twilight Imperium that engaged me like being able to customize my ships and send my unique fleet into battle.

At least the company was good Had a great time playing with you guys today and do hope to play more epic games with you in the future. Thanks again especially to Paul for being an amazing host.

Eclipse is just too unforgiving in my opinion. A bad galaxy setup and its game over. TI3 at least has multiple paths to victory... We had VPs for the galaxy centre, tech, resources, influence, building... So varied which makes for a closer game.

Look how close the game today was... 7 points won with everyone else on 6 - bar the Nekro